


A Better Argument Than That

by elle_stone



Series: Tumblr Requests [5]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Ficlet, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 12:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11851593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/elle_stone
Summary: Roma just shrugs. “Bellamy and Clarke are arguing. So?”It’s true that they’ve fought before and probably will again, but they’re usually semi-discreet about it. They’re both too proud for public scenes, and even more so since they claimed de facto leadership status of the group. This fight is something else, verbal combat on a whole new level.Or: The delinquents overhear a fight between Bellamy and Clarke.





	A Better Argument Than That

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "I'm mad at you because I love you," requested by anonymous on tumblr.

Miller, leaning back in one of the plastic Dropship chairs, enjoying his off-shift hours in casual conversation with Roma and Mbege, is the first to hear them. It’s Clarke’s sharp “No!” that alerts him to trouble. Or intrigue, or both. 

He _knows_ that voice. He knows that exact tone, in fact, from an Earth Skills project they worked on together when they were twelve. Even though six years have passed since then, he still feels a sharp jolt when he hears it—some combination of fear and annoyance and exasperation—like a ghost passing all the way through him and leaving him shivering in its wake. He holds up a hand and Mbege stops talking, mid-word.

“Did you hear that?” he asks, and tips forward in his chair again.

“You’re going to have to come up with a better argument than just stomping your foot at me, Princess,” Bellamy’s voice sneers, and Miller glances over to his friends again.

Roma just shrugs. “Bellamy and Clarke are arguing. So?”

It’s true that they’ve fought before and probably will again, but they’re usually semi-discreet about it. They’re both too proud for public scenes, and even more so since they claimed de facto leadership status of the group. This fight is something else, verbal combat on a whole new level. And pretty soon the whole camp is going to hear it—probably some Grounders too, at this rate, a thought that makes Miller’s jaw clench. 

“So, you’re not at all curious what it’s about?” he asks.

“No, not really,” Roma answers, and rolls her eyes so dramatically up toward the sky that Miller knows she’s lying through her teeth. A fight this loud is bound to end in swinging fists or hate sex and he wants as much of the story as possible, for future reference. When he levels her with a disbelieving stare and she just crosses her arms and bites her lip, he figures she does too.

"It's too dangerous!" Clarke yells back. Her voice is frayed around the edges, frantic, like she's scrambling desperately for some sort of counter. A few more people turn their heads. Even those who are pretending they can't hear a thing have pretty much stopped talking or moving.

"Too _dangerous_?" Bellamy mocks. "Every time any of us leaves the camp it's dangerous. What's different about this?"

"He's not wrong about that," Jasper mutters. He's standing not far away from Miller's group, doing supply inventory with Monty, but it's pretty obvious neither of them cares much about working anymore. Monty nudges his arm against Jasper's—either his idea of comfort or a sign to keep quiet, Miller's not sure.

"You know why it's different!"

Miller huffs out a breath quietly. That was a weak answer, and she took a while to come up with it. Griffin's obviously losing, but the entertainment value of the conversation is definitely increasing. Someone needs to be running commentary on this. 

"Explain it to me anyway," Bellamy dares.

Harper and Monroe exchange curious glances, and Mbege crosses his arms and tilts all the way back in his chair, eyes steadfastly on the sky. This pause is even longer than the last one, and it's so awkward, the whole camp can feel it.

"You're just—you're so infuriating!" Clarke yells, finally. Not a bit of the tension in the air dissipates. 

"She doesn't have an answer," Miller whispers. "She knows she's losing."

"She's just trying to take control of the argument again," Roma answers. 

"I thought you weren't interested."

She rolls her eyes but doesn't answer, because Bellamy's voice, loud and disbelieving, rumbles out from the inside of the Dropship again, interrupting whatever response was right on the tip of her tongue.

"I'm infuriating? _I_ am? You're the one standing there trying to dictate what I do. You're the one who thinks you have the right to do that. I'm going on this mission. I know it's dangerous—"

"Not just dangerous, Bellamy, suicidal. It's stupid—"

"I'm stupid?"

" _Going out ther_ e is stupid. You're not talking about a hunting trip, you're talking about—you know if you go, you probably won't come back."

The silence, then, both inside the Dropship and without, takes on a new quality. It isn't just that no one is speaking anymore, that the words tripping over words and sentences cutting off sentences have died out. It's a silence so complete and so certain that Miller can all but picture the scene inside the ship: two people staring at each other, staring each other down; two people facing a truth, now cruel and sharp in the open, that they’d silently promised to keep unsaid.

Outside, a few people shift from foot to foot, a few dare to look at each other, but most just look down at the ground. 

"Someone—" Bellamy's voice says at last, quieter, but still audible in the utter silence of the camp, " _someone_ has to go."

"But don't let it be you," Clarke answers, pleading.

"Why not me?"

It's impossible to tell without actually being able to see them, but Miller imagines Bellamy stepping forward, subtly starting to get into Clarke's space.

"If I'm so _stupid_ and so _infuriating_ , then why not me? I don't get it. I come in here, I tell you I'm going on this mission—which I do not need your permission to do, by the way—and you start up this argument with me and you won't even explain—" He cuts himself off, probably huffing out breaths through his nose, now, trying to control himself. 

Miller can't picture Clarke anymore. Is she starting to back down? Or still as stubborn and angry as ever? Is she staring him down like she's twice his size or is she about to falter against the sheer weight of his incomprehension, his questioning, his ringing voice?

"You know I'm right," Bellamy tries again, "Why are you so mad at me about this?"

A pause of only a few beats follows (long enough for Mbege to murmur "This will be good") and then Clarke yells, a sudden burst of words that sends half of the camp tilting forward in their chairs or backward on their feet: "I'm mad at you because I love you! I don't want you to go because I love you!"

Monty’s eyebrows rise up toward his hairline, and Harper shades her face with her hand. "Oh shit," Jasper whispers.

But from inside the Dropship comes only silence.

The silence lasts so long that a couple of people start walking closer to the entrance, overwhelmed by their curiosity, so desperate to find out what's going on now that they don’t stop to think that they already know. That kind of silence can only mean one thing. 

"I guess I was half right about the hate sex," Miller whispers. He didn’t mean anyone to hear, and when Roma asks him if he said anything—just around the time a loud crash sounds from inside the Dropship, like something falling to the floor, or getting pushed roughly aside in a heated, passionate moment—he just shrugs. “Nothing,” he answers. “I didn’t say a thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [tumblr](http://kinetic-elaboration.tumblr.com/), where I talk about writing a lot and sometimes take requests.


End file.
